Donorcentrism – Critical Fundraising

Making sense of criticisms of donor-centred fundraising

Donor-centred fundraising is not used to being criticised. But it’s going to have get comfortable with it and respond to those criticisms better than it has been doing. Ian MacQuillin tries to disentangle some of the issues

OPINION: ‘The end of donor-centred fundraising and the last fundraiser’

Has the rise of donor-centred fundraising obscured fundraisers’ duties to their beneficiaries? But if fundraisers really do have duties to beneficiaries, from where do these duties derive? Cherian Koshy gets to grips with some knotty philosophical questions.

NEWS: Are donors ‘taking liberties’ – or worse – in their relationships with fundraisers?

The influence that donors can exert in their relationships with fundraisers is to be researched for the first time as part of a new project by the fundraising think tank Rogare.

NEW IDEAS: How to put beneficiaries first, without throwing donors out with the bathwater

How can fundraisers reconcile the tensions between serving the needs of their donors and beneficiaries? Ian MacQuillin describes a new way to envision the role of fundraising within an organisation that might do the trick. Continue reading NEW IDEAS: How to put beneficiaries first, without throwing donors out with the bathwater

OPINION: What do we need to learn from the Presidents Club debacle?

The can of worms opened at the annual Presidents Club dinner might be bigger than we think. Ian MacQuillin explores some of the questions raised.

KNOWLEDGE: The ‘donorcentricity’ debate

American blogger and commentator on the nonprofit sector Vu Le kicked off a small storm earlier this year when he challenged the concept of donor-centred fundraising. Critical Fundraising collates some or the debate engendered by Vu Le’s arguments.

NEW IDEAS: Donorcentrism – all things to all fundraisers, part 1. What is it?

‘Donorcentric’ fundraising could claim to be the dominant philosophy in fundraising. But, asks Ian MacQuillin, can anyone actually describe what it really is?

NEW IDEAS: Donorcentrism – all things to all fundraisers, part 2. What could go wrong?

In the first part of this blog, Ian MacQuillin argued many fundraisers don’t have a consistent idea of what they mean by ‘donorcentric’ fundraising. In part 2, he explores some of the issues this can lead to.

KNOWLEDGE: Blog digest April 2017

Each month, the Critical Fundraising blog presents a digest of the best fundraising-related blogs and articles that have adopted a critical fundraising mode of thought. Inclusion in this digest does not indicate that Rogare agrees with any arguments presented, only that we thought they made a good argument.

KNOWLEDGE: Fundraising ethics blogs – regulation

This is a collection of blogs looking at the the ethics of fundraising regulation.